Background: Systematic reviews on environmental issues are still not commonly used by decision makers. One important reason is the lack of ownership of the results. The Swedish centre of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) network, the Mistra Council for Evidence-based Environmental Management (EviEM), has had regular contact with stakeholders since its start in 2012. Stakeholders have been asked to suggest topics for reviews and each EviEM review team co-designs the protocols with a group of stakeholders interested in that specific issue. In addition, in 2015 EviEM asked a large group of stakeholders about their knowledge needs for their work on environmental management.

Objectives: To strengthen stakeholders' ownership and participation in knowledge production.

Methods:Environmental work in Sweden is guided by 16 Environmental Quality Objectives (EQOs) that describe the quality of the environment that Sweden wishes to achieve by 2020. Inspired by Sutherland (2006, 2011) EviEM asked environmental authorities, county administrative boards, interest groups and various other stakeholders about what knowledge they lacked in order to achieve the Swedish EQOs. Through surveys and interviews we collated a range of different issues. The questions collected were then used as a basis for a workshop conducted in the spring of 2015. The workshop was attended by stakeholders and environmental researchers. The workshop took place over two half days to allow time for reflection, and groups were given the opportunity to comment on each other’s work during the process.

Results & Conclusions: The workshop resulted in 9 overall groups of topics related to the EQOs, with 5 to 7 questions in each group. Several proposals overlapped, and we have summarised the 56 questions into a total of 12 broader topics of knowledge needs. These areas include both issues that require further primary research and issues where a systematic review could provide a synthesised answer.